


my hands no longer an afterthought

by kreia



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, another pwp because why not, older!Arya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 01:43:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3832417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kreia/pseuds/kreia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man offers. A woman takes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my hands no longer an afterthought

The nights are hers, and hers alone.

 

It’s always a risk, doing this, but she stills in her run, and decides. It’s far enough from the House of Black and White. She looks around her in the darkness, shifts her legs slightly as dust rasps against the worn soles of her boots. Slivers of moonlight drip in bright and sharp between thick clouds, outlining the motley of domes and towers and perpetually busy wharves scattered all throughout the city. The Titan is a hazy shape in the distance, its sword-hand stretched high in the sky.

When there is no sign of anyone watching her (there has been no one for years, she knows, except for the shadow of someone she could never quite remember, yet could never quite forget), she slips her hand under her battered cloak’s hood and pushes it back. With her forefinger, she traces the line of her jaw from one end to the other, stopping when she reaches the patch of skin just below her left ear, and _pulls_. Humid air washes over her face, sticking on bare skin as she sucks in thirsty gulps of breath. She carefully tucks the borrowed face in her bag.

For tonight ( _just tonight_ , she swears), she is Arya again, haunted by wolves.

There is a rhythm to this, Arya has been taught (or was it Mercedene? Cat of the Canals? Beth?), a calculated lilt to the constant alternation of her feet barely touching the rooftops of sleeping Braavos as she flits through, quick as a cat, towards her destination. She makes her way down the Long Canal, relying only on moonlight and memory as she jumps and crawls her way across buildings and through lonely streets.

There’s an unusually wide gap between the slanted rooftops that even Arya has to stop to measure the angle before leaping, but something doesn’t quite go right as she feels that familiar rush of air that accompanies falling, and it’s too dark to see what she’s falling into, _too high_ and _there’s nothing here_ running through her mind as she reaches out blindly – she manages to grab onto a ledge, and pushes down the shouts of pain that threaten to slip from her mouth. As she considers the pool of darkness waiting to swallow her whole below, moonlight shines through erratically again, and the length of an empty alley is revealed to her in the dim light. She’s only two stories above the ground.

 _Ah_ , she thinks. Arya lets go of the ledge and falls steadily on her feet, closes her eyes to get a better sense of her surroundings. She’s almost there; the scent of incense fills the open air with a sickly sweetness and spice that she’s come to recognize as _safe_.

Arya pauses and frowns, her posture falling into a defensive stance, and holds her breath. She turns her head to the side, listening. Her hand rests calmly on the hilt of her sword. She counts. The rustle of the wind passing through the alley. _One_. Drunken singing from far away. A faint clinking of wind chimes. _Two_. _Three_. _Nothing._

After a few more moments, she relaxes, and opens her eyes.

She smiles. There is no sign of him at all.

 

 

The House of Seven Lamps is almost stifling in its warmth downstairs; the music and heady incense mingling with the intoxicating sounds of giggling moans is almost too much for her senses, but in her room – a  large one at the end of a hallway – the noise is a mere muted thud. There’s the almost-silent click of the door as it is shut, but Arya doesn’t move from her position in the chair by the open window, only tilts her glass of pear brandy in his direction instead.

The view from her room is wonderful, she has to admit;  the inky blackness of the sea tainted with silver whips of light, merchant ships docked by the wharves rocking gently against the gentle wind. Unfortunately, she could only focus on the dagger hidden in a makeshift strap against her thigh, the iron a familiar cold weight against her skin. Two of her fingers rest on the hilt. “I’ve seen you three times today, did you know that?” She takes a sip of her drink. “By the fish markets. A beggar sitting on the painted bridge. The patron in black downstairs.”

“A woman knows her kind very well,” Jaqen says quietly.

Something about his words pricks needles in Arya’s skin. _No, no, I am Arya, I am not, I have never been faceless_ –

She swallows back her thoughts, and smiles in the near-darkness. “Are you going to kill me, then?”

A beat of silence, and then – “No.”

“Why not?” Arya says lightly, but her heart is too loud, too heavy in the stillness of the room. “You know what I’ve done.” She thinks of the borrowed face folded in her bag. She could never really bury Arya, no matter how long it has been since she’s tasted snow and laughter, no matter how many faces she’s worn – a hundred different names in her heart, all dripping with blood.

Jaqen comes closer, but there’s no hint of his footsteps, only the sudden nearness of his voice behind her any indication that he’s moved. “A girl can pretend to forget, but a woman only remembers,” he murmurs, trailing the back of his hand up the side of her neck, and brushes his thumb in gentle circles on her cheek. Arya leans into the touch, and closes her eyes.

A woman only remembers, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? She _can’t_. The memories she has are fragmented, a mess of pines being crushed beneath monstrous paws and bitter cold stinging thick fur. An almost memory of a girl who loved lemon cakes and songs.

Jaqen is silent behind her, his warmth like an offering. “A woman is tired,” he says softly, earning a surprised laugh from Arya until he leans down to press a string of reverent kisses on the bare skin of her shoulder, and she shudders instead, breathing out his name. “Perhaps,” he says as he licks a long line up her neck, “she should rest.” He leans down again and lightly closes his teeth over the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

Arya sucks in a sharp breath. “I still have something to do,” she says in an uneven rasp, and gets up from her chair, her knees curiously weak.

Behind her, Jaqen chuckles. “Then a woman won’t be needing this for what she must do, hmm?” He dangles her dagger in front of her as Arya whips around to face him, the blade catching the barest glint of moonlight.

A heated color rises to her cheeks. He must have taken it when he leaned down to – “It’s yours, if you want,” she mutters, ignoring the flash of heat between her thighs. She has more daggers concealed on her, anyway, even in the flimsy brocade of silk she wears.

“ _Ah, ah_ , but what would a man want with so many?” There’s a distinctive clink of steel as he takes his other hand from behind him, and there her other daggers are, hilts of bejeweled silver and gold trapped between his fingers. The sight of them in his hands feels intimate, somehow, like he’s seeing her stripped bare.

It’s too dark to read the expression on his face, but his voice is light, playful. “The man a woman seeks has been taken care of,” he says, and Arya stiffens. Jaqen puts her daggers down on the table by the window. “He was a Tyroshi slaver, was he not?”

 _Was?_ The thought makes her feel a stone lighter. “He’s dead, then,” she says blandly, trying to mask the relief in her tone.

Jaqen tilts his head, as though counting out time that is quickly running out. “A man is about to be,” he concedes, grabbing the bottle of pear brandy. “A woman can stay the night here, if she wants.”

She stares at him, scowling. That odd burst of emotion springs into motion in her chest again. Something that almost feels like remembering. “What do _you_ want, Jaqen?”

Jaqen takes a careful drink from the bottle and sets it down again. He closes the distance between them until he’s only a few inches away from her face, deliberately not touching her. Even now, he gives her the choice to grab what she wants, and she does, with a desperation she doesn’t quite fully comprehend. This close, Arya can see the curve of his mouth as he smiles.

“A man wants a woman to take,” he says, as if it wasn’t obvious enough.

Her mouth almost waters at the thought. She reaches out and cups his jaw in a firm grip. “And if I don’t?”

“It is a woman’s choice, lovely one,” he whispers hoarsely.

 

The only reason she can find for why she pulls him down and hungrily presses his mouth to hers is that there is nowhere else to go ( _for tonight_ , she reminds herself), so she might as well accept the generous offering of his fingers deftly untying the sash that holds her clothes together – she shivers as cool air finds her bare skin – and the grateful moans he makes against her skin when she finally runs her fingers beneath tunic and breeches, finds him already half-hard and wanting. She reaches out, wraps her fingers around his cock and strokes him roughly until his breathing grows ragged and loud in the quiet of the room.

Arya pulls away from him, stalks backward until the back of her legs hit the edge of the bed, and sits.

“Kneel,” she commands, and he does, the tip of his cock brushing stiff against his navel as he leans forward in front of her. Arya bites her lip, feels herself flush with all the things she could do. He’s resting on his knees between her legs, his palms tense against his thighs, waiting. “Come closer.” He shifts so his breath rushes hot against her skin and he’s suddenly pulling her by her waist until she’s only barely on the bed, tethered in his hold.

Moonlight floods the room. Jaqen’s face is pale and dreamlike, despite the solidity and heat of him pervading her senses. She runs her fingers through his hair and watches as he closes his eyes, parting his lips in wordless urging. She kisses him again, runs her tongue across the swell of his lower lip. He arches against her for better leverage, his hands restless in their wandering on her body until his thumb brushes lightly between her legs and circles. Arya gasps and jerks away, leaning back on her elbows as Jaqen leans down and kisses her just above her soaking center. Then he paints his tongue in long swatches as he opens her up, lavishes warm licks against her flesh as he slips two fingers deep into her, and it is her turn to surrender herself to the gift of Jaqen's hot mouth on her.

There is a lilt to this, Arya learns, a subtle art in the relentless pressure of his tongue, the curl and thrust of his fingers that leaves her undone and shaking. Her breath comes out in ragged groans as he withdraws his fingers until only the tips of them are inside of her. He closes his mouth over her nub, and _sucks_.

She comes, toes curling against his back, her fingers tangled in his hair, but he doesn’t stop there, doesn’t stop until she’s lightheaded and the cacophony of voices in her head are distant echoes, easily ignored. He doesn’t stop until there are no traces of wolves and faces – only a white-hot space where nothing matters but his mouth warm against hers as he slips inside her with a strangled moan, his heartbeat steady beneath her palm.

“ _My name_ ,” she gasps, when she’s near the edge of coming again, and the pleasure of it is keener this time with him pounding into her, a sharper tilt that has her clutching tightly onto his shoulders with every frantic thrust of his hips. “ _Say my name_.”

Jaqen leans down. “Arya,” he whispers in her ear. “A woman is Arya of Winterfell.” Arya closes her eyes. It almost feels like an invocation, a kind of calling. He slips his hands beneath her and lifts her up as he grinds down. “Arya,” he says, even as he spills himself into her and his rhythm stutters, her name becoming mere wisps of breath from his lips, “ _Arya Stark_.” She arches her back and cries out, her teeth bared in a growl.

 

When she comes, Arya thinks she can remember the taste of snow.

 

 


End file.
